Lord Vinson
Main Page: Lord Vinson (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Vinson's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Newby
My Lords, interest rates are set by the Monetary Policy Committee. The noble Lord quoted rather selectively from the Act. If he had read Section 19(1) instead of Section 19(2), he would have found that the Treasury’s powers to which he referred are applicable only if they are,
“required in the public interest and by extreme economic circumstances”.
In the absence of “extreme economic circumstances”, the Treasury has no reserve powers.
Lord Vinson (Con)
My Lords, whoever is in charge, is it not time we had a monetary policy system that paid due regard to the rate of exchange? A trading nation cannot ignore the rate at which it exchanges its goods. Is it not time our policy embraced the effect of interest rates on the rate of exchange as well as on inflation?